In connection with his reflection on the role of saints as spiritual heroes, Leonard J. Vander Zee offers this order for an All Saints' Day worship service with song suggestions.
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Featured Opening Responses Resources
Who of us wants to hear words of critique even when they are true and spoken in love? Our natural instinct is to rebuff such words and deny their veracity. At the same time, few of us know how to offer true words of critique and prefer to avoid them. We often do the same in worship, especially when it comes to the prayers of confession…However, words of hope and grace are meaningless if we don’t understand just how mired we are in sin. What’s more, calls to live lives of justice and grace are missing their mark if we leave the bar too low.
We need to dwell on difficult passages like Psalm 50. We need to hear God’s words of judgement in order to change our ways and receive God’s message of hope and abundant grace.
These resources for the opening movements of a worship service use language from Psalm 85 and develop the themes of that psalm as well.
“Listen to the promises of our Holy God—
God has covenanted with us
that all who are faithful will flourish.
God will not let us remain in our sin,
but, through Christ, all who believe will be saved.
More than that, God remains with us.
God is with us here, now, and forever!”
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